


Comforts of the Miserable

by piecesofalice



Category: Psych
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:55:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piecesofalice/pseuds/piecesofalice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing about working late is, the lights start to go hazy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comforts of the Miserable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jesshelga](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesshelga/gifts).



_“'Tis the only comfort of the miserable to have partners in their woes.”_   
** Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra**

  
\---

  
The thing about working into the night is, the lights get hazy.

  
It’s eleven past 1 in the morning, and Juliet’s cup is dry.

  
“Coffee,” she says lazily, over a pile of case files the height of her torso. She’s sitting across from her partner, and he’s pretending not to be asleep, so she waves her cup with a picture of some retro cartoon on it in front of his face and he scowls.

  
“Coffee,” he agrees, narrowing his eyes, but walking into the kitchen and putting the pot on for the eighth time that night. His arms are tight, so he stretches against the high ceilings and unbuttons his work shirt all the way down until his wife beater is exposed.

  
He’s tired, and he can see Juliet is too. But they will continue to plough through the case files, looking for something, _anything_, that will give them their cue to wrap the suspect up and end the night before it’s morning.

  
Carlton doesn’t see this happening, so he pulls the filling pot out of the percolator and pours them both coffee, black.

  
\--

  
“Music?” He asks against the sound of a clock ticking and pages turning.

  
“Music,” she agrees, although she’s afraid it’s going to be Kenny Loggins and Mr. Mister, back to back at last.

  
She watches as he puts an iPod into a Bose dock, and something cruisey and jazzy flows from the speakers. Juliet tries not to show her surprise at a) the fact he has an iPod and b) it seems to be Feist or something like her, and instead, picks herself up from the chair with view of scrolling through the tracks because she likes the surprise and wants to feel it again.

  
“What are you doing?” He frowns, and she knows he hates people knowing too much about him.

  
“Just looking,” and she does that head-tilty smile thing that makes him want to leave the room in frustration and something else he can’t quite articulate. “I didn’t know you liked music.”

  
“No, I’m a robot who lives in a cardboard box lined with felt. Of course I like music.”

  
“Modern music?”

  
The withering look she receives from her partner makes her smile, so she puts down the iPod and begins to pace like a tiger in a cage.

  
“What _are_ you doing?” and she kind of wishes he would say something else, like _what do you do when you go home at night?_ or _what size shoes do you wear?_ but it’s always “what are you doing/why are you doing that/what will that achieve?”

  
It pisses her off, actually. “Give me a tour.”

  
“A tour?”

  
“Of the house.”

  
He raises an eyebrow and plants his hands on his hips, and she brushes her eyes over his chest which is barely kept inside the white wife beater she always knew would be under his work shirt, but had, of course, never seen. His nipples are erect, and she blushes, and kicks herself for thinking like a sixteen year old girl seeing Joey McIntyre for the first time shirtless and begins to blather at him instead.

  
“Come on, we need a break, show me your study or your work shed although I bet you don’t have one, just your garage, I don’t want to see your bedroom, but you can show me if you want, do you have a piano?”

  
When she starts talking in long sentences, he’s often worried she’ll pass out. So he directs her to the only room on the bottom floor that isn’t a bathroom or a kitchen or a lounge room, just to get her breathing again.

  
\--

  
“This is the study. How exciting.”

  
Juliet looks into the room, and it kind of makes her voice catch. It’s like a million she’s seen before – wood panels, trophies and photos, the smell of leather like a memory and books (so many books!). But it’s so _him_, so Carlton Lassiter, and she feels like the last two years have opened up and she understands him so much more.

  
“You love this room, huh?” She knows he’s making that face, the face where he wants to ask her what the hell she’s talking about but he’s afraid to because it may end up with a tirade about puppies versus kittens.

  
“It, uh, it’s gotten some use.” The voice behind her is tight, wound, and he breezes past her to plant himself in the high-backed mahogany chair behind the impressive desk.

  
A master at his domain. She felt like she was in some film noir, where the detective sits behind his station, watching the femme fatale with heavy eyes and legs splayed, the play of the fan and shadows whipping over their faces while every single cell in the room throbbed with sexual tension.

  
Juliet’s not sure where this all became a part of real life, but from the look on Lassiter’s face, he was feeling it too.

Whether it was boredom, they’d never know.

  
\--

  
It’s deliberate, the way she’s walking around his desk. Pretending to touch and ask questions about books, photos, his mother. It’s 2:30am, and he’s suddenly wide awake because somewhere between his kitchen and study, they both shed their skins a little and he feels like there’s a snake in his stomach.

  
Part of him almost smiles because he can see her hands shaking as she bends down in front of him and places her hands on either side of the chair.

  
“What are you doing,” and it’s more an afterthought because he always says it and it’s always the only thing he can think of in face of her smile.

  
”Stop asking me that!” Like her mind is made up, her brow furrows and she kneels between his legs and starts undoing his belt. He touches her shoulders, the thin cotton doing nothing to hide the lines of her clavicles or the curve of her neck, and she stops her hands for a moment and nuzzles into him like a cat.

  
“O’Hara –“ but she jumps up and he almost gets scared to death because she’s pushed him up the chair with her knee in a delicate area and is kissing him - _kissing him_ \- and his belts half undone and he should be _stopping this right now_.

  
Her mouth is warm. She tastes like coffee and Chapstick, a funny waxy combination that kicks his dick into overload. He tries to be embarrassed, but she panting against his teeth and everything carnal takes over because she’s _perfect_ to him and he knows he’s always wanted this.

  
Her shirt and bra are off before he can think, like his hands are doing what his subconscious is telling it to. Eyes closed, her hands up his singlet, mutual thumbs on opposing nipples and it’s wonderful to be alive.

  
Oh, God, she’s playful and nipping at his lips and _smiling_, shimmying off his pants and giggling because he’s kissing the tops of her breasts and they both think that this is what it must feel like to fuck someone you love.

  
It’s a strange thought, a stupid irrational thought, because he’s a soon-to-be divorced man in his late thirties and she’s his young and peppy partner made of soft curves and the type of hair you only see in your dreams. But still, they don’t – can’t – stop, so they help each other out of their clothes and the foreplay’s like two kids in a candy store.

  
She’s braced herself against the back of the chair, and her chest is in his face as she slides onto him. As the pressure increases and his hands land on her hips, the chair supports them and holds them and neither feels exposed or anything but the other.

  
Leaning down to kiss him, her head in his shoulder then his hands on her side, momentum grows and friction snaps in the air and she’s making the type of noises that would make even God Almighty come.

  
So he does, and he’s a gentleman so he helps her go there too and something in the back of his mind makes him feel happy he bought the chair without wheels.

  
\--

  
It’s 3:07am, but it feels like a million years later. They’re huddled in the chair, her hair is wet and he can’t look at her for fear she’ll disappear.

  
There’s a million and one thoughts rushing through their heads – both probably the same, but in different voices and more rounded tones – and there’s a clock ticking outside their brains and the sound of each other’s breathing and she says his name into the dark.

  
He doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t expect him to.

  
It’s 3:09am. They don’t think about the case files and only about how this seems like the best closure to the night, and he kisses her on the cheek as her eyes close shut.

\---

_Fin._

\---


End file.
